


Five Christmases on HMS Surprise

by feroxargentea



Category: Master and Commander - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-09
Updated: 2011-12-09
Packaged: 2017-10-27 03:05:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/290955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feroxargentea/pseuds/feroxargentea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How many attempts will it take to make 1813 perfect?<br/>Seasonal silliness, written for the 2011 perfect_duet Christmas Calendar.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Christmases on HMS Surprise

**Author's Note:**

> With thanks to cj2017 for excellent plot suggestions and terrible Killick impressions.

 

 **Christmas 1813**

“Has anyone seen the Doctor? Pass the word for the Doctor!” called Captain Aubrey.

Killick stuck his head round the cabin door. “Which ’e’s sleeping off the eggnog, and I ain’t going to be the one as wakes ’im. Was you needing the surgeon’s mate instead?”

“No, no! The Doctor’s the best marksman in the ship and _someone_ ’s got to shoot this goddamned bird before it kills us all.”

“Ain’t dangerous, sir, it’s all just sound and fury, so ’e said.”

“We should never have let him bring the bloody thing aboard,” said Jack moodily. “It was supposed to be for Thanksgiving, and when the hell was that, may I ask?”

“Dunno sir, one of them foreign things innit? Like you’d give thanks for being anything but English.” Killick snorted derisively. “It must’ve bin and gone by now anyway, I reckon, and no one caught the f- the f- the foolish beast of a bird. Sir.”

“Oh you are monstrous great lily-livered cowards, all of you!” said Jack.

“Some of the crew’d be a mite upset if the bird was slaughtered. Sort of pet it is now, like, no ’arm in it...”

“You grab it then, Killick. Get it with both hands, man,” said Jack.

The turkey was perched on the stern-locker, eyeing them with its vicious beady little eyes of evil.

“Um, the silver’s a-tarnishing, sir, got me duties to attend to, rushed off me feet ain’t I, what with the Christmas puddings to make and all,” said Killick, backing hurriedly out of the Great Cabin.

Pullings darted out from where he had been hidden beneath Jack’s desk and flung himself on the bird just as Mowett ran in from the quarter-gallery and tried to catch it in Stephen’s butterfly net. The turkey extricated itself neatly from the resultant scrum and headed off towards Stephen’s sleeping-cabin with all the dignity such a ludicrous creature could manage.

“Bugger,” said Jack. “Goose it is, then.”

 

 **Christmas 1813b**

“Run out your guns! Prime your guns! Point your guns! Fire!” shouted Jack, and the starboard guns boomed out in a rolling broadside. One or two of the balls fell short, but most skipped over the water and ended in plumes of white around the shattered remains of the target-barrel.

Jack checked the time by Stephen’s Breguet. “Creditable, creditable, but we can do better.  Note the time, Blakeney. Is the second target in place?”

“In place, sir,” said Pullings.

“Then we shall try whether the larboard watch cannot move a little faster. Larbowlines, cast loose your guns! Load your guns! Double-shotted, if you please, Pullings.”

“Double-shotted it is, sir.”

“Run out your guns! Prime your guns!” Jack ran over to the number six gun and sighted it himself as the crew held the side-tackles. “A little more elevation,” he muttered to the gun’s captain, who raised the barrel with a hand-spike. “A little more, thus, very well thus.” He stood out of the way of the cannon’s recoil. “Fire!”

Bang! from the number one gun, and then the next, and so on down the line, boom after boom; but it was a strangely muffled booming with an usually spicy scent mixed in with that of the gunpowder and smouldering slow-match. The target, floating on the waves two hundred yards away, had been hit by almost every shot, but it bobbed there still, blackened but otherwise undamaged.

Jack stared at the barrel of his gun. He could not swear to it, but he thought he could see what appeared to be dried fruit around its muzzle, and there was a distinct whiff of allspice.

“Killick!” he yelled. “Pass the word for Killick!”

“Which I’m coming already... What now?” muttered the steward, sticking his head out of the hatchway.

“I ordered you to put the puddings somewhere safe until Christmas, did I not, Killick?”

“Aye sir, I did just that, very safe. The very best double-shotted plum-puddings, them, sir. They weren’t in anyone’s way in the shot-room.”

 

 **Christmas 1813c**

 “We cannot possibly keep him on board! It is an absurd proposition!” cried Jack in exasperation.

“Oh sir!” muttered Pullings reprovingly. “Raised voices might wake him!”

“Well, but,” said Jack, somewhat abashed, “However are we to take care of a baby on the _Surprise_?”

“Why sir, we can hardly turn him away. Washed up in his cradle he was, poor little lamb. We can put him in the manger with Aspasia and the other goats, to make him feel at home. The sail-maker has wrapped him up in best number three sailcloth so he ought to be cosy enough,” said Mowett, and added in a piercing whisper, “Mr Calamy! Put that bull-calf down _now_! Mr Blakeney, stop teasing Aspasia and give her back her tobacco before she wakes the baby!”

Jack sighed. Being a frigate-captain was a job with many varied duties, but wet-nurse was certainly not one of them. “How do you propose that we feed the brat? Any of you?”

“Try ’im with a little custard. Sir,” said Killick.

“ _Custard_?”

“With mebbe just a drop of rum mixed in.”

“The infant is approximately nine months old, I should say. It might conveniently be weaned,” said Stephen, poking at the baby and smiling as its little fingers curled around his, “and custard _is_ a most nutritious foodstuff.”

Jack watched him playing with the child, and then he sighed. “Good will to all men, hey?” he said resignedly.

“And peace on earth, brother,” said Stephen.

And the child, realising its sailcloth nappy was soaked through, started to shriek.

 

 **Christmas 1813d**

“Have you a stocking ready to put by the stove?” asked Jack.

Stephen gave his rare creaky laugh, which he turned hurriedly into a cough. “Forgive me, my dear, but you are not truly going to hang up stockings, for all love?”

“What a fellow you are, Stephen! Of course I am, or where would Father Christmas put his gifts?”

Stephen glanced sharply at Jack but saw nothing but hope and innocence in his expression. “You expect a visit, then, I find?”

“Why, I have spent the whole of 1813 – which has lasted a most surprisingly long time, now that I bring it to mind – being conspicuously good and never naughty. Well, very seldom naughty. I have chased the French, I have sunk enemy ships, I have worked up the crews at their gun-practice until we can fire three broadsides in five minutes–”

“Or three puddings,” Stephen put in helpfully.

Jack glared at him. “Very seldom naughty. Do not make me break my record, brother.”

“I do apologise, petal. Look, here is a spare stocking you may hang up for me.”

“But Stephen, this is more hole than cloth! Have you no needle?”

“Many needles, my dear, and you have often been sewn up with the help of one of them,” said Stephen, “but I must confess I have no _darning_ needles, nor the knack of mending hosiery. I collect that you do.”

Jack took out his huswife and rummaged through it. “How you wear holes in your stockings so quickly I cannot tell.”

“The gulls did peck so, when I went to take their eggs for eggnog, that I fear it may have damaged the cloth. Never mind it, joy. Just think of the gift your charitable act will earn from Father Christmas.”

Jack found a darning needle and thread and settled down to mend the stocking with a contented smile. “You can be as sarcastic as you choose, Stephen, and I shall not mind. I’m not the one on his Defaulters List.”

 

 **Christmas 1813e**

On Christmas morning, Jack awoke early, bounced out of his cot and rushed into the Great Cabin to see whether Father Christmas had been by. Sure enough, the hardtack and coffee left out on the desk had gone, and both of the stockings pinned up by the little hanging-stove were bulging with little sailcloth parcels. Jack was gleeful and Stephen complacently amused. He did not point out the rat-droppings on the desk, nor the fact that Killick had stolen some of the sickbay’s bandages to tie up the parcels.

“Happy Christmas, joy,” he said, kissing Jack absently under the mistletoe. “May it run a little smoother than 1813’s last few attempts.”

And so it did. To be sure, their dinner was somewhat late, the goose having taken longer to cook than Killick had calculated, but when he finally carried it in it was golden and perfectly roasted. Then he burnt his hands taking the Christmas pudding out of its steaming cloths, but Stephen used the discarded present-wrappings to bandage him up, and all agreed that the pudding was a triumph of plummy suety goodness.

Jack sat in his chair, half-dozing. All was peaceful, and all was contentment. Why, then, the feeling that something was missing? He opened one eye.

“Stephen?” he said.

“Yes, my dear?”

“Did Father Christmas bring you everything that you wanted?”

Stephen considered. “Perhaps not quite everything. And you, Jack?”

“Not _quite_ everything, perhaps.” Jack was blushing and poking at the deck with one toe.

“Shall we adjourn to the sleeping cabin, then, acushla?”

Jack looked up and smiled. “It would round out the perfect Christmas, would it not?”

Stephen held out his hand. “It would so. Happy Christmas, Jack.”

“Happy Christmas, Stephen.”

 

 


End file.
